1_keyword_research for ranking surgeon.pdf

Keyword
Research
Ranking Surgeon Course - All rights reserved.
Copyright by Raven767
This is where we all begin our SEO journey - keyword research. It often
determines whether we are going to succeed or not so please focus a lot in this
chapter!
Keeping it simple
I realize that many of you reading this ebook already know how to perform a
simple keyword research. If you're good at it already or you're using one of the
paid keyword research tools available on the market, you can skip this chapter.
I don't know how much is in your pocket and what software you already have or
not. That's why I'm going to show you here how to perform a good keyword
research witouth any paid tools.
Yes, there are some good paid tools out there and they are making the whole
process faster and easier, but they are not necessary to succeed. More on this
later.
Everything starts with one keyword
This is why you need to think about this root keyword carefully! You can go with
a keyword which:
• you have knowledge about - good if you write your own articles ,
• is highly profitable - good when you outsource article writing,
The perfect combination would be the both :)
I personally go with high profitable keywords that look interesting enough for me to
dig topic more - so I'm not totally bored while working on the website.
My keyword requirements are simply: over $5 CPC and over 1000 searches per
month local. However, many times I will go after a keywords with lower CPC if
the competition is easy.
Where to get your first keyword idea
Luckily for you, it's not that hard! I have a few very easy to perform and very
powerful keyword reserach techniques that you can use right away. Copy and
paste into notepad any keyword that you find during this process so you can
work with it later.
1. High Traffic websites method. Head over to big websites such as:
• Amazon, Ebay, Other big retailers
• Ehow, Wikihow, HowStuffWorks
• News, Magazines
• Clickbank
• Authority websites in big niches (think of health, sports, hobbies, music,
movies, etc)
• OR USE ALEXA RANKING TO FIND HIGH TRAFFIC WEBSITES
Dig randomly into categories or articles on these sites and you will find literally
thousands of good keyword ideas. When you are on the page, click on the
Density Button on the Seo Quake Toolbar for Firefox (here's a guide how to use
it)
A big list of keywords will show up. Keywords are sorted by phrases number
(1,2,3 or 4 phrases). We're interested in two phrases words most of the time.
Pick up anything that's worth your attention and copy it into notepad OR you
can just copy the whole list into Excel -> Notepad -> Google Keyword Tool to see
how many searches these keywords have and filter keywords with low search
volume right away.
Remember, in most cases we're not going after the final keywords here, just the
idea keywords to start our research.
2. Search keywords by most profitable niches. You can find the best popular
advertisers that spend their money with google adwords in this infographic.
Simply get a root keyword from there and put it later to Google Keyword Tool. It
is also good to get the synonymous of that keyword from the Thesaurus.
3. Google Suggest method. Simply start typing anything into Google and see
what it suggests to you. This method is working very well if you want to find
keywords with very high search volume or with very high urgency (these have
super high CTR). Think of searches like:
• Buy
• Buy {a|b|c}
• How much for
• How to get rid of
• How much does it cost to
• How much does a
• Where to buy
• How to buy
• Cost of
• What is the cost of
• Help me with
• Need help with
• Need help
• TOP 10
• TOP 100
• TOP 20
These are just a few examples - be creative and think of your own ideas for
google suggest and you will find a lot of keyword ideas!
But wait! Google suggestion tool built into search engine SUCKS for SEO. It
doesn't show you all suggestions available but only fraction of them. That's why
we're going to use Ubersuggest.
Ubersuggest not only gives u a big list of suggested terms, but also digs them
even more, with related words right away. Click here to take a look at this live
example. When you click on the certain keyword a list of related keywords will
show up. That's pretty cool and powerfull!
You've found your root keyword. Now what?
By now you should have a list of atleast 10 root keywords in your notepad. Now
we're going to paste each keyword (one by one) into Google Keyword Tool. It is
important to not paste all keywords at once because you will get less results this way.
1. Open Google Keyword Tool (remember to log in). Check as follows: exact
match, USA, English language
2. Paste first keyword into Google Keyword Tool. A list of related keywords will
show up
3. Now you need to filter these results so you don't go after garbage keywords.
Apply filters as follows: local monthly searches more than 1000, approximate
CPC > 1 ( I have 3 in my example because I use other currency on my adwords
account, PLN not USD).
4. A filtered list will show up. From 800 results now we have only 55! There are
also some good keywords on "Ad Group Ideas" Tab so look for these, too! These
keywords often do not show on the standard "keywords ideas" list!
5. Now you will need to do competition analysis for these keywords to see how
hard it will be to rank for them and to check if they are profitable or not . You will
learn how to do a competition analysis from the LIVE example below. Read
carefully!
Live example - finding a keyword, competition &
commercial value analysis
Below you can see step by step example:
• how I find a profitable keyword ,
• how I perform a competition analysis,
• how I check a keyword commercial value
Let's start!
1. Using "High Traffic Websites" method I decided to visit a health related niche
website, www.webmd.com. I clicked randomly through few pages on this
webiste and found this article Anatomy of a Medical Visit. I clicked the "Density"
button on the SeoQuake Plugin. A list of keywords showed up. One of these
keywords gained my attention - medical assistant.
2. I went to Google Keyword Tool and typed in "medical assistant". I used the
filters CPC >1 and local searches >1000.
3. I checked each keyword competition level for many keywords until I found my
"golden keyword". Here's how I did it:
• Type each keyword from the list into Google.com (use Google.com/ncr or
this page if you live outside USA)
• Have Seo Quake Toolbar turned on
• A list of pages will show up along with PR and other SEO data
When pages like this (with no page rank) are ranking in the TOP 3 it means that
this is a low competition keyword and it will be very easy to dominate.
4. I look at page titles and url. These look very optimized for the keyword which is
kinda bad. However, I'm not done yet with my analysis.
5. I check page backlinks. I visit MajesticSeo.com (register for a free account) and
type the URL of the first page
A report shows up. That page has literally no backlinks!
Two other pages look very similar. They have no backlinks or very spammy/low
quality backlinks. Additionaly, if I'm not sure, I would check these pages with
Open Site Explorer, Ahrefs or SeoKicks just to be double sure about my decision.
6. Now I'm going to check a commercial value of this keyword. I want to be sure
that there will be many advertisers bidding on my keyword and my CPC and CTR
is very high (the more advertisers bidding for a keyword, the better ad text they
need to write to convert their offers. That's why CTR is higher in these niches). I
visit keywordspy.com and write my keyword on the homepage.
A results page shows up:
Stats look great for this keyword. Many active advertisers, high CPC and moderate
search volume (broad).
7. Looks like I'm done - a keyword "what does a medical assistant do" seems to
be a winner. Low SEO competition and competitive PPC advertisers making this
keyword a good opportunity to make some real money fast.
Should I target just one keyword or many?
In the example above I showed you how to find one good keyword. However,
Google loves websites with more content and great internal structure, so
targeting more than one keyword is definitelly a good option -just prepare to
write more articles or make sure that your budget is ready for this.
How to find more realted keywords? Simply head over to Google Keyword Tool,
type your keyword and go to the "Ad group ideas" Tab. You will find here
keywords grouped by categories - ready to use on your new site. You can also
mimic other similar websites structure, categories and content.
Remember to have a good internal page structure when you are going to make a
big site. Here's a great article how the proper page structure should look like. This
is very basic informations, but I see a lot of people still forget / don't know about
these things.
Exact Match Domain or Branded?
Putting it short - both options would work. There are no studies (or they are not
good enough or done with very low data) to prove that EMD ranks better over
brand domains or vice versa. However, it seems like Google is favoring brands in
many niches so look carefully what type of websites are ranking in your niche - if
it's a brand, go for a brand. If it's not, it's good to go with EMD or partial match
EMD, too.
I personally rank both EMD and branded websites very well. I decide what to
choose depending how serious I am about a website:
• EMD domains - good for short term websites and if you want to make
some money quick. Properly structured (On page SEO, good internal links,
lots of content) exact match domain will often rank for itself withouth
backlinks or it will require much less backlinks than branded domains.
Choose EMD domain if you are going only after one certain keyword.
• Branded domains - good choice for the long term websites and building
a brand. Choose branded if you are going after the set of keyword, not just
one.
I register almost all of my domains on NameCheap. They have low prices and free
private registration for one year, which is very helpful for blog network purposes.
Keyword research with paid tools
Tools like Market Samurai or Long Tail Pro will help you with competition analysis
and further keyword research and it's the sole reason why I can recommend
them (only if you have money for this).
I'm personally using Long Tail Pro because it's the fastes tool available on the
market and does everything I need. You can get a Long Tail Pro here.
However, you need to realize that these tools won't give you keyword ideas to
start with - that's why techniques I showed you here will still work great even if
you have your paid tools.
Also remember to use KeywordSpy.com before you decide to jump on a certain
keyword. The last thing you want is to jump on keyword that keyword tool
showed you has high CPC, but in reality, nobody is bidding on it.
Action Plan
1. Come up with your main keyword idea. Visit Alexa Ranking, pick up your
category and enter any big niche website.
2. Open random article on the nichce website. Click Search Density button and
browse 2 phrases keywords. Pick up few and add them to your list in the
notepad.
3. Open Google keyword tool and type in one of the keywords from the list
you've created. Check >1000 local searches and CPC >1$
4. A list of generated keywords will show up. Click on first keyword from the list -
you will be redirected to Google.
5. Look for page's PR displayed on the results page. The lower page rank these
sites have, the easier it will be to rank.
a) if the competition is very high (PR3+) skip this keyword and move into another
b) if the page rank is low you should do a further investigation of that page. Type
it's url into MajesticSeo and see their every backlink. Calculate how strong their
backlinks are and you will see roughly how hard it will be to rank your website on
#1 spot.
6. If the competition is easy enough to beat you should analyze keyword
commercial value. Visit keywordspy and put your keyword there.
a) if the keyword has no PPC advertisers LEAVE IT
b) good keyword will have atleast more than 10 PPC advertisers
7. Search for related keywords to target on your website. If you find many you
can create a branded domain. If you won't find many, use exact match domain.
8. Register a domain
9. Rinse and repeat